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Feature - ski Patrol

Volunteer pioneersWhistler’s First Aid Ski Patrol, 1965-1979

Prayer for the First Run of the Season

Oh Lord, there’s just one thing. I hope you’ll remember.

I’m not really in shape yet – it’s only November.

My lungs won’t inflate and my heart’s barely pumping.

I should have been busier jogging and jumping.

Now I’m facing this mountain with weak-kneed contrition.

Mea Culpa.

I know – but I’m out of condition.

So Lord, let no tree stumps, no uncovered patches,

No rock, root or boulder on which my tip catches.

No hazard unseen in this snow—frosted valley

Make the season’s premiere

Its grand finale.

— Jackie Lewin

 

Volunteer pioneers

Whistler’s First Aid Ski Patrol, 1965-1979

Adjacent to the Whistler Mountain Ski Club cabin in Creekside, behind a cluster of trees, a boarded-up building seems to have been forgotten in the race to modernize the area. The abandoned structure is easily overlooked as you drive past the new Legends building, the First Tracks Lodge, Franz’s Trail and the relocated club cabin.

Back in the 1960s however, this seemingly ordinary structure was at the centre of mountain life in Whistler, acting as home base to a group of dedicated mountain patrollers known as the Whistler First Aid Ski Patrol, or FASP.

The First Aid Ski Patrol was a self-sustaining, volunteer organization responsible for avalanche control, run markings, trail maintenance and First Aid on Whistler Mountain. The FASP was a national non-profit organization, with the local chapter comprised of patrollers from Grouse Mountain, Mount Seymour and Mount Baker in Washington State. The tight-knit group was around long before there was ever a ski resort in Whistler. And from Whistler Mountain’s opening day in December 1965 until May of 1979 the FASP ensured safety on the mountain. In its heyday, the volunteer patrol numbered over 80 members.

When Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. began mountain operations in 1965 the only ski lifts were the gondola out of Creekside, the Red Chair and two T-bars – one in the alpine and one at Creekside.

The Creekside area was the "hub" of Whistler and housed a doctors’ trailer, L’Apres bar, a cafeteria, the general’s manager’s house (home to Jack Bright, Alan Turner and Sandy Boyd over the years), and the mountain manager’s office.

In the lean, and somewhat remote, operation that Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. was in the 1960s, the volunteer FASP played a critical role on a huge mountain. Being a member of the volunteer ski patrol was a big deal in those days. The FASP was a unique group, many of whose members shared similar qualities, namely their love of the outdoors and mountains, and the camaraderie that went along with those experiences.

In the initial three years of operation, Whistler Mountain’s wilderness presented numerous dangers and problems for experienced and novice skiers alike. It was directly due to the hard work of the ski patrol that there were no serious accidents or loss of lives during that period.

Former Whistler patroller Ron Royston, who joined the group in the 1968-69 season, remembers: "I was very proud of our accomplishments as a ski patrol, especially when the senior instructor for the Avalanche Level I and Level II courses acknowledged that Whistler’s volunteer ski patrol was one of the most capable in North America, even in comparison to paid patrols."

Most of the credit for the patrol assembly and construction of the ski patrol cabin can be attributed to Tony Lyttle, an enthusiastic spark from the start. Lyttle headed the volunteer patrol from 1965 until his retirement in 1971, when Dave Stewart took over.

The patrol cabin at Creekside was the physical and symbolic centre of patrol life in Whistler. Like the patrol itself, the cabin was a product of volunteer labour and love for the mountains. It became a reality through the efforts of the patrol members themselves, including Hugh Smythe, Paul Burrows, Royston, Harvey Fellowes, Alex Bunbury, Ralph Latham, Don Simpkin, Al Schmuck, Dan and Flora Campbell, Meg Fellowes, Ian Mackenzie, Cliff Jennings, and Maureen Shepherd.

Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. provided the land on which to build the cabin, and money for the building materials came from an insurance settlement collected by Grouse Mountain after its ski patrol cabin burned down. A group of volunteers spent the summer of 1967 constructing the patrol cabin – which provided much-needed accommodation for the many volunteers who drove up from Vancouver every weekend.

Prior to the cabin, patrollers slept wherever they could, including Jordan’s Lodge, the construction trailers and the staff bunkhouse. Many patrollers simply slept on the cafeteria tables at L’Après, only to be awakened at 4 a.m. by "Old Mary" baking cinnamon buns.

"It was a hard floor when you rolled off the table," remembers Hugh Smythe, one of the original patrollers who travelled up from Mount Baker in 1965. Smythe spent his first season with the FASP, and later headed the pro patrol. Today he is president of Intrawest’s Resort Operations Group.

The man who brought Smythe to Whistler was Ralph Latham, a heavy duty mechanic for B.C. Hydro and previously a volunteer patroller on Mount Baker. Latham, was responsible for keeping detailed records of the FASP over its 14-year existence, and "for keeping the beer flowing."

"He skied funny," Latham’s long-time partner Jackie Eccles said shortly after Ralph passed away in 1999 at the age of 84. "He was bow-legged and he had a strange style which worked for him but nobody else seemed to be able to do it."

Latham was over 50 when he joined the FASP at Whistler, but was heavily involved in construction of the ski patrol cabin.

It was no easy feat building the cabin in those days, considering that workers had to excavate into the surrounding rock face using limited tools and machinery.

When it was finished in the fall of 1967, the patrol cabin consisted of one main floor with a living room, a bathroom and a sauna. A few years later, the cabin was expanded to accommodate even more patrollers, and a second floor was added, consisting of another living room and three bunk-style bedrooms.

But at the end of the day, it wasn’t all hard work and exercise. The young, active patrollers made sure that plenty of free time was set aside for revelries and endless barbecues at the cabin. New Year’s Eve parties at the patrol cabin were particularly notorious.

Harvey Fellowes, an original FASPer and long-time Whistler resident, was involved with the patrol from its inception in 1965. He fondly remembers the hours spent fishing on Lost Lake and the annual log rolling contests held on Nita Lake, followed by barbecues at Jordan’s Lodge.

Hugh Smythe recalls, "it was a gravel road from Squamish, so in the spring you arrived in Whistler looking for a shower. You made sure you had a full tank of gas because there was no gas station in Whistler."

Communication was also a big challenge in those days. According to Ron Royston, "the smallest two-way radios were the size of a lunch box and weighed well over 10 pounds. They were definitely not suitable for the ski patrol, and there were no cell phones. Patrol members were assigned a particular run and they circulated through the top, where a patrol member would wait until called to an accident or was "bumped" by another patroller arriving to take his place.

"The volunteer patrol’s hard work paid off when a magneto telephone system was secured and installed up on Whistler Mountain, complete with a switchboard set up at the top of the Red Chair office."

The new telephone system greatly advanced the communication on Whistler Mountain, since it not only allowed the patrol to change its patrolling patterns but it enabled people to speak to anyone else on the system, anywhere on the mountain.

With the telephone system in operation, the patrol accident response was consolidated into the Bump Room. In 1971, after a successful raffle, the ski patrol finally obtained their first portable two-way radios.

"It soon became clear that radios were the best thing since sliced bread," said Royston.

Grooming the mountain was another big challenge. According to Smythe, "It was difficult work to dig out the Red Chair by hand, since there were no bobcats with blades and tillers in those days. When accidents occurred, the news spread entirely by word of mouth. People would tell the lift operator and they would phone from the bottom of the Red Chair. If there were accidents on the T-bar, we used Seppo’s construction shack at the bottom of the T-bar, where the reservoir is located today. We had no Skidoos to help transport toboggans. You had to pull the toboggans across the flats, all around the top of Jimmy’s Joker to the top of Toilet Bowl. There was no trail grooming and lugging the toboggans around was quite a challenge."

Harvey Fellowes remembers getting up at 5 a.m. and digging for two or three hours just to reach the top of the Red Chair.

"I remember this one time where Paul Burrows and I had to dig one metre through the snow before we could even see the chairlift cable, and then another two metres to reach the lift – all this before skiing even started for the day."

This era preceded the availability of medical services in the valley. Injured skiers often endured a treacherous three to four-hour drive to North Vancouver. There were no ambulances and few helicopters available in those days. Okanagan Helicopters could fly the more critically injured skiers down to Vancouver, but this was a very costly option for most people.

A group of 10 doctors assisted the ski patrol with medical diagnosis of serious on-hill injuries. If a doctor was needed a flag was placed at the top of each lift and when an on-call doctor got to the top of a lift he checked in with the patrol. The doctor was then dispatched to wherever the injured skier was being treated by patrollers.

But any injuries that required more than basic treatment meant a trip to Vancouver. Land slides and avalanches periodically blocked the highway to Vancouver, so the train was occasionally used for transporting injured skiers. One particular night stands out in Tony Lyttle’s mind.

"It was a Sunday night and the injuries were backing up. We had to get everyone up to Mons Station, where the train stopped. There were people loaded on every seat, on the floor, and down the aisles, with the luggage piled up everywhere. Injured patients were placed in the baggage compartment on stretchers. People were getting sick all over the place and we were trying to administer hypodermic needles and painkillers in the dark using flashlights. It was like a scene from Dr. Zhivago or like riding a cattle train."

Luckily, they made it to the city with no casualties.

"When we arrived at the North Vancouver train station, it seemed like every ambulance and police car was waiting for our arrival with their red flashing lights," said Lyttle.

In the late ’70s, as Whistler made plans to become a destination resort, including the development of Blackcomb Mountain, plans for the ski patrol changed too.

To handle the increased skier visits that would come when Blackcomb opened in December of 1980, Whistler Mountain’s management dissolved the First Aid Ski Patrol in the summer of 1980 and went exclusively with professional ski patrollers.

Any friction that had existed between the pro patrol and the FASP during the initial transition period was quickly dispersed once the new paid patrollers realized that the volunteers were very capable, well-trained skiers.

Whistler Mountain now required all patrol staff to possess blasting certificates and industrial first aid accreditation, in order to meet the increased liability requirements. The work of the pro patrollers changed dramatically with the advent of radios, GPS technologies and use of helicopters.

Whistler Mountain agreed to purchase the patrol cabin in Creekside from the FASP. Those funds were subsequently used to support the construction of a ski patrol cabin on Grouse Mountain, which continues to be used by the First Aid Ski Patrol to this very day.

Over the years, the volunteer patrol cabin at Creekside has been used by squatters, and played a number of different roles, ranging from a Wee Daycare, office space for Whistler Mountain staff, to storage facilities for the Whistler Mountain Ski Club. Ex-FASP member Alex Bunbury often patrolled the cabin in the early years to prevent damage or squatters from making their home in the cabin, and to keep an eye on things.

Over the past 10 years, the old patrol cabin has witnessed all the developments in the Creekside area. But it still holds many lifelong memories for a special group of Whistlerites.

Many of the original Whistler patrollers are still actively involved with the ski patrol in the Lower Mainland. Ron Royston is currently embarking on his 35 th consecutive ski patrol season, acting as a patrol leader at Grouse Mountain. He still continues to work as a Search and Rescue Manager with the North Shore Rescue Team, and even takes one week each year to train with the ski patrol at Big White.

"And yes, I do get to ski Whistler and Blackcomb from time to time," added Royston. "While there, I wear my own radio to monitor the patrol activities and to be able to assist should an emergency arise."

A true patroller and mountaineer at heart.



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